I chuck the device in our neighbor’s trash bin, making sure that thing stays away from my house and my mom and me. I hate them. I hate them all. The ones who attacked my dad, those who sent me this video, and whoever is calling these sick and twisted shots. Hot tears flood my eyes. I scour the alley one more time, wondering who’s watching, who is reveling in my torment right now. Bursts of air pump in and out of my nose. I clench every trembling nerve and muscle, determined to keep it all in. Balling my hands at my side, my nails digging into my palms, I march, one foot in front of the other, back into my house, where I collapse behind my locked door and crumble into a million pieces.

Chapter 17

CHAPTER 17

I wake the next morning, heavy and drained, like I’m experiencing the morning after my father’s murder all over again. Only this time, instead of imagining what his final moments were like, I relive them. Every vivid detail. In a way that happy thoughts can’t replace. He was smiling right before the first hit. At what? A text? From me? My mom? Lip Spike’s blow batters him. My dad’s body slams against the concrete. His face, once handsome, pummeled, bleeding.

I bury my head in my pillow. Part of me wants to sink into the down feathers and sleep away the next few years of my life. Free of thinking and memories and agonizing pain that shoots through every part of my body.

The Swarm would love for that to happen—it’s what they’re hoping for.

With every part of me broken and resistant, I push my head and shoulders off the pillow. I slide out of bed, determined to start my day, go to school, do whatever they’d least expect.

The Death Mob will not control me.

For the first time in my life, I dab concealer beneath my eyes to hide the red puffiness and I do a treatment without my mom’s prodding. I grab an outfit off my floor—something I wore last week or this week, I forget—and limp down the stairs.

Spinning around the staircase, I catch a shadow as it ducks into my dad’s office. A silver glint flashes in the light from the spikes in his chin.

I squeeze my eyes shut, tighten my grip on the banister, and ground myself. I concentrate on the cool, smooth wood beneath my hand. The gurgling of our Keurig machine as it drains water into a cup. The pungent smell of my mom’s Mahogany coffee mixed with the faint perfumed scent of her face cream. These things are real. The shadow, I rationalize, is not.